


One Night Engagement

by tvsn



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brexit, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, New Year's Eve, Schlager, Talent Shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 07:13:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17239784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvsn/pseuds/tvsn
Summary: John André’s musical talents are requested in an emergency, Benedict Arnold remains a sceptic until shown otherwise.A short follow up to my André/Arnold Christmas Special to celebrate the new year.





	One Night Engagement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reinette_de_la_Saintonge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge/gifts).



> For those who don’t know, I broke my left thumb a few days ago while trying to cut a piece of meat (which is why I am desperately behind on all of the proper comments and art I owe, reduced as I am to a single hand with which I am in the process of relearning how to type.) I cut myself to the bone but remarkably avoided nerves and significant tissue, so it will be fine – that is, I’m not looking for attention or pity, I only mean to set the stage for the self-inflicted tragedy that became comedic when the ever-lovely Reinette, in a (successful!) effort to alleviate the boredom ensuing from my little accident, suggested a follow-up to a story I had recently published in the course of correspondence. 
> 
> Having this been gifted something better to occupy myself with than the question of how many jokes I can make about being the only person to begin the new year with a bandaged and braced hand who didn’t even get to set off fireworks for the honour, I wrote what follows and decided to share it with all of you. So – hoping you lovely readers have a fun and safe slide into 2019 – here is a short story about a few Red- and Turncoats around year and a week or so since we last left them in a snow-covered cabin, or to speak of the cast in full - a drab office in the northwest under the stress of corporate cheer …

“It sounds like a prank,” Benedict Arnold assessed of the situation as it had been explained to him, delicately as he might. John André wore a pained expression as he continued to stare at the laptop that separated them on the fold out bed which they had shared for the past several months in a flat that had once belonged to Arnold alone.

“Of course it is a _prank_ ,” André agreed without taking his meaning. “But one having repercussions that extend the office. I can hardly decline.”

“Perhaps,” Arnold tried, his diplomacy fleeting, “you may be too … _generous_ with your talents.”

“Can the same not be said of every artist?” André mused.

But ‘artist’, to Arnold’s assessment, his lover most certainly was not.

The two had come to know each other as the result of a Holiday Gift Exchange at a workspace they had shared a year prior – John André in the firm’s payroll department, Arnold himself on the sales floor, booking holiday getaways targeting the self-defined aspiring middle class in a country where “social mobility” was as much of a standing myth as “Brexit means Brexit.” Arnold had relocated from Hartford to Liverpool a year prior to the referendum and aside from his having to pay a nominal administrative fee that had been seen as quite controversial the previous spring when submitting his proof of residency and employment, had not been particularly affected by Britain’s sudden, somewhat uncharacteristic desire towards isolation.

If anything, for a time he had been its beneficiary.

For two years, whenever certain buzzwords for dominance in the day’s news, the travel agency filled with people who did not otherwise pay the politics any mind, charmed by his American accent to seek out places they had never been while the pound continued to have purchasing-power and their passports allowed for passage through airport security. By the time the public had recovered from their mild-hysteria, Arnold had saved up enough money to leave said agency when it no longer proved as profitable to work on commission and had used the earning of the past years to open a small bookstore near the university. André had gotten out of the office he had long claimed to hate a few months prior as well, joining Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for the retirement benefits and the more immediate perk of the government not forcing holiday merriment on any of its civil servants.

Which was half the reason Benedict Arnold found himself so perplexed at John André’s resolve.

In the office they had once shared, André had fallen into the prank-in-protest mentality that seemed to dominate payroll’s approach to most things. Former colleagues John Graves Simcoe and Edmund Hewlett went out of their way to make one another miserable, never more so than under the prescribed seasonal spirit of giving which political correctness forbade anyone refer to as a Secret Santa. ‘Presents’ between the two (as André described them with exaggerated disgust) ‘usually involved some method of public shaming.’ The year prior, Simcoe had put a virus on his cherished colleague’s computer, forcing Hewlett to ring IT to ask them to remove the fetish porn from his screen. For the next few weeks, Hewlett had been loath to use the workplace restroom facilities, fearing further jokes about his alleged autonepiophilia (causing Arnold to question upon learning this if his former co-worker in fact wore adult diapers due to some medical condition which he was worried would thusly be discovered and misdiagnosed as psychosexual infantilism – something he never entirely worked out for himself prior to the termination of his own employment.)

It was Hewlett who had contacted André seemingly out of the blue, begging for his assistance in contending with yet another Simconian catastrophe. This year, John Graves had clandestinely snapped photographs of Hewlett’s ever-awkward face in moments when his too-strong features were shifted such as to recall a kaleidoscope in the childhood memories of any casual onlooker. He had super-imposed these odd expressions onto old posters of famous musicians of which Merseyside had its plenty, leasing add-space online and creating some measure of confusing for his colleague when Hewlett’s phone began ringing with booking offers from various small venues. Annoyed by a week of such nonsense, Hewlett had evidently answered the latest call he had received in request of  his musical talents in the same short ‘no!’ he had offered all others, but before he could explain that he was not in and over himself a band (Beatles-Covers or otherwise) a young woman had returned with an ‘Oh, thank God!’ – going on to explain that the gig was at a retirement home for former servicemen, most of whom had never founded a family as the result of being aboard in the name of Queen and Country, who felt especially lonely as a result around the holiday season. He was her last resort. He found he could not say no, and thus, had turned to André for help.

John André had no particular talent to speak of, but that had not stopped him from trying.

Technically, the two had begun dating after Arnold in an act of Christmas alms had gone to see his then co-worker in a nativity play (which had proven every bit as bad as its casting promised if not more so.) Since then, André had restricted his creative hobbies to their now-shared home, cluttering the kitchen sink with paintbrushes he seemed to have no want to wash and occasionally treating Arnold to intimate concerns on his recorder which the American was always quick to cut short with a well-placed euphemism that stopped the show.

Now, André wanted to preform before an audience of lonely seniors with a former colleague whom he could not stand.

“At least if you two are doing the for the old there exists a fair chance of your audience already having a hearing impairment,” Arnold muttered to himself as he reached for the book that he had set down to have a conversation that risked becoming circular. André, however, took it as an excuse not to speak to him for the remainder of the evening or the next two to follow.

 

* * *

 

Part if not all of his attraction to the man lied in the reality that Benedict Arnold was nearly impossible to impress. Whereas pervious lovers had fawned over John André’s artistic endeavours (or at least feigned a passing interest in his efforts), Arnold sneered where he might have offered a smile, found distaste where delight had been intended, and made no effort to show support for any of the things André did to win his approval. Although then man might otherwise be described as over-eager and blindly enthusiastic, when it came to his creative expression, at most, André might expect a slight smirk to accompany a belittling comment. None, however, was forthcoming when upon reaching the retirement home in a hired car, the American ex-pat muttered, “I see the whole band is back together.”

“No one asked you to come,” André returned briskly, defensively, though he shared the same sentiment. A few familiar faces stood around the three cars which in addition to their own took up the full of the visitor parking – Hewlett, naturally, and pretty cleaning lady with a plump arse and sizable bosom he was evidently still seeing, Simcoe, his charming sprite of a missus, her belly again rounding with child – another to add to his collection of almost identical daughters who lined up never failed to recall a Russian nesting doll, and Rogers – who for all André knew might well have been a resident at this point.

“I’ve never seen you in a button shirt,” André slighted the larger Scot in greeting, “or shaved for that matter.”

“Ah cam did Ah nae,” Rogers scoffed, lifting a tambourine and smacking his heavy hand against it which André took would prove the extent of his participation in this joint venture. “Ye still oan th' bevvy, Johnny?” he offered, taking a swing of whatever he kelp in his flask before offering it to the two newcomers. “I’ve been sober for three months,” André negated.

“I, on the other hand, am apparently going to have to sit through this catastrophe,” Arnold accepted. André took a step away from him and asked the others what they were working with.

Eliza Simcoe did most of the explaining. Furious with her husband’s office antics, she had forced him into joining Edmund Hewlett on stage somewhere in the two hours it had taken André to pen a witty response to the email he had been sent in desperation. She had taken it upon herself to make a playlist (largely out of the lyric videos she had found on YouTube) printing out sheet music to be played along. “There is a lot of Ed Sheeran on this set list,” André commented. “You a big fan?”

“No,” Eliza took her time to consider. “But he … all of his songs sound like they could be Christmas songs and only get air time in the winter, but they are not _Christmas songs_ … so it is still seasonally appropriate. Same with Tchaikovsky – no Nutcracker, of course,” she said as she thumbed through the music with him. “There are a few generic old army tunes that all sound the same to my ears, some British invasion which may evoke memories of … happier times, maybe? A few songs from Frozen and its sequel -”

“I’m not signing that,” Hewlett interjected.

“Oh, you’ll have help,” Eliza told him through a clenched tooth smile. Her daughters shared giggles between themselves that did not transcend to adult expressions. “There is no point to doing this if the two of you don’t regret every waking moment,” she continued sweetly to her husband and his cherished nemesis.

“But what about Rogers and myself?” André inquired.

“Och Ah am guid Johnny,” Rogers cakele, slipping his thigh. “Donae fash yerse abit me - got a new phain fur Chrismas, Ah am gonnae record thes an' pit it up oan th' YooTube fur a laugh.”

“So that is why you came,” André considered sombrely. He looked about his bandmates, hating that they had not found time to rehearse (which depending on the kinds of casualties Simcoe and Hewlett had found individual merriment in inflicting, maybe have been strategic on the parts of their significant others who looked equally unamused.)

Still, André swore to himself – the show must go on, and this could well prove the closest he would ever come to a chance at redemption. The last time he had been on stage, he had forgotten his single line. Now, he was the most equipped of anyone fate had found him with to put on a quality performance for a group of lonely people saying goodbye to another year they were likely surprised to have lived to see.

Hewlett was playing the piano (as he often did at office functions held at amendable bars when he had had a drink too many), Simcoe had found himself stuck with a purple ¾ sized acoustic guitar with the words “Hannah Montana” printed upon it (a hand me down from his second oldest after the first born had meanly informed her that the show as ‘for babies’) and Rogers had his tambourine and iPhone for instant streaming. This had likely been part of the women’s plan as well. André glance up at Arnold, looking to evidence in his expression that he had something to do with the travesty that was certain to unfold. “Do you still think my recorder is a joke?” André spat.

“I never said -”

“Anything – Anything!” André completed. “Even when I need you to. _Especially then_.”

“I am here, aren’t I?” Arnold seemed to demand. When he bent over to kiss him, André allowed the affection only on the merit that he had adorned himself in shimmering body and face cream meant for and marketed to women in warmer countries wanting to maintain a summer tan. In wet, dark Merseyside in the dead of winter, it did André little favours beyond the fact that his owning it seemed to anger his boyfriend to comment and confrontation. None was forthcoming before Arnold, with a sizable amount of glitter having transferred to his lips, found a seat in the back row between two old men who looked like they wanted to be there less than he did.

Armed with his wooden flute and the national embarrassment that was Ed Sheeran’s music, John André was determined to change everyone’s mind and took his rightful place as the group’s frontman.

 

* * *

 

Benedict Arnold sank further in his stool as the grave man beside him grumbled that one could only get away with bringing a recorder into a performance after the age of eight or so if their last name happened to be Kelly. Were circumstances different, that was, were he not otherwise committed to the man who stood out from the others around him through the sheer force of self-illusion that lent itself not only to his instrument of choice but to the sparkle in his skin and loosened hair, fitted trousers that left little to the imagination and peasant shirt left better to Dutch flea markets or Renaissance fairs, Arnold might have shared in the laughter this comment created. As it was, he could offer little more than hard, hateful glares at the men around André, which he reasoned was quite a lot given that the embarrassment they had extended to him made him want to cover his face and hide his head, preferably in the sand of some far and foreign desert where no one knew his name.

The lights flickered, signalling that the show was about to begin and John Graves Simcoe (predictably) took a step back, sullen over the predicament he had invited, as close to a corner as he could maneuverer himself. He held the small, purple guitar as though he intended it to be used in an armed assault, looking all the more pallid and wan against the strong colour in his shaking hands. Edmund Hewlett introduced the group in a stutter, seeming as though he might have needed a larger swig of Rogers’ Scotch in order to sell his presence before the retirement home’s piano with its two missing keys. The performance had not even begun and Robert Rogers had already lost any pretence of interest in it, having since left the stage in favour of the snacks and sips on offer in the back of the room. John André, Arnold decided, was indeed an artist amongst these imposers.

“He looks like an angle,” an elderly woman commented when he began leading the group through an awkward, unrehearsed rendition of Yellow Submarine.

“If you only knew,” Arnold replied, returning to the night they first came together as a couple. Within fifteen minutes, he found himself smiling. After half and hour, he was beaming with pride.

 

* * *

 

The show ended with a standing ovation. John André found himself the recipient of all of the admiration and attention he had so long desired, albeit from an audience he would never have identified as his target. When his mother had retired, André had paid for her to take a holiday to the continent, cumulating in an Amigos concert of the kind that found its way onto German-language television at six on a Sunday morning, complete with the cameras panning out to a gaggle of octogenarians, happily clapping along to the sounds of Schlager in whatever clothing collection Helene Fischer had last designed for Tchibo’s discount coffee and assorted commodities boutiques. The show had delighted her, and André found himself with her in this memory as women who might have been her showered him with praise. When he finished signing autographs, responded to Hewlett’s comment that it was a pity they had never performed together before with a dismissive remark that that he had never taken him up on countless offers to attend his improv performances (exactly as he long dreamed of doing and to the same effect as phantasy), he went into an adjacent room to ring his mother - wishing her a Happy New Year, telling her he loved her and meaning it before telling her ‘I love you’ as a polite way of excusing himself from hearing a list of concerns and complaints ranging from his heath and happiness to the latest Tweet of an American politician whom she described as ‘honest’ and André himself found intolerable.

“You tell her about your comeback?” Arnold asked, finding him after what could not have been such a long search.

“Comeback,” André scoffed, still searching for a way to hold this over his significant other. “We didn’t get so far … my mum remains of your mind with regard to President Trump -”

“The best, the greatest -”

“Can we not?”

“I meant you.”

“You mock me with your choice vocabulary,” André said, no longer feeling like a small stage superstar, but rather, simply small.

“I don’t know what to say,” Arnold confessed. “I never do. I was worried for you, the whole week long – you are, how to put this without injury? – John … you are brilliant in everything you privately create, your sketches and paintings that adorn the walls of our home and shop are breath taking … when you practice playing, when you don’t know that I’m home, frankly you are brilliant, but as soon as you are confronted with an audience or simply onlookers you transform into this laughably incapable parody of yourself and … well such a group isn’t exactly the most forgiving.”

“Thank you?” André squinted.

“You blew them away though. I was sitting beside an old man whose criticism you silenced the second you began to play.”

“The one I saw fighting with Anna Strong? I think I just deflected it elsewhere.”

“Yeah, apparently, she used to be involved with his son and has since found some perverse pleasure in the fact that years later she has met him in a retirement home, bitter and alone as she always felt he should be. But I … overhearing this I thought, no one should be alone on the holidays, should they? Or ever. You showed me that.”

“Where is this going?” André asked cautiously.

“John André,” Arnold said as he began to lower himself to one knee, “Would you do me the honour -”

“No … you are not – oh God,” André moaned, burring his face in his palms to hide his smile.

“But do you see how you embarrass me before a publicum of complete strangers and people we would both rather not know every time we -” Arnold began, injured and incensed.

“That is fair, I’m sorry, continue,” André gave.

“John André,” Arnold cleared his throat. “Would you do me the honour of providing a constant, conflicting source of aggravation and allure for the rest of my days?”

“I love you,” André answered.

“Is that a yes?”

“This is,” he said, pulling himself into the boar’s embraces and exchanging a sloppy, wet kiss without censor until he found himself short of breath.

The two returned home before singing Auld Lang Syne, snogging without paying attention to the clock, knowing that regardless if their lips met at exactly midnight, they would spend the year together and many, many more.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> There were a fair few references to music I have a mind to think you’re unlikely to have been exposed to at any point. Hey, hey, hey – isn’t that the whole reason foreigners should be encouraged to fic? Maybe not. Let’s do this anyway.
> 
>  **Die Amigos** are Muppets Statler and Waldorf made flesh and made to sing cheesy love songs in the German language. I don’t … really have a better way of explaining the post-war generation in its entirety save to state that like these blokes consistently have chart topping albums. Mama André would have likely been thrilled to see them on a plastic beach erected somewhere around Munich. To each their own.  
> Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd1YykQ2nVs 
> 
> **Helene Fischer** has been referenced in fic before if only for the fact that she is simply inescapable. In addition to her contributions to the Schlager scene, she occasionally lends her signature to **Tchibo** products (Tchibo being both a coffeehouse and a shop for random commodities with a quick turnover.)  
> Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haECT-SerHk 
> 
> This wasn’t in the story but as I am linking up all kinds of awful, I saw this music video a few times over Christmas with the in-laws.  
> Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcpr9RmNQlo 
> 
> Anyway, I set out to write a fluffy AU but this may have been worse than the noose. Frohes neues!


End file.
